Page 304 - the-idiot

laughing-stock of me. You don’t know what a fool she made
of me in Moscow; and the money I spent over her! The mon-
ey! the money!’
‘And you can marry her now, Parfen! What will come of
it all?’ said the prince, with dread in his voice.
Rogojin gazed back gloomily, and with a terrible expres-
sion in his eyes, but said nothing.
‘I haven’t been to see her for five days,’ he repeated, af-
ter a slight pause. ‘I’m afraid of being turned out. She says
she’s still her own mistress, and may turn me off altogether,
and go abroad. She told me this herself,’ he said, with a pe-
culiar glance at Muishkin. ‘I think she often does it merely
to frighten me. She is always laughing at me, for some rea-
son or other; but at other times she’s angry, and won’t say a
word, and that’s what I’m afraid of. I took her a shawl one
day, the like of which she might never have seen, although
she did live in luxury and she gave it away to her maid, Katia.
Sometimes when I can keep away no longer, I steal past the
house on the sly, and once I watched at the gate till dawn—
I thought something was going on—and she saw me from
the window. She asked me what I should do if I found she
had deceived me. I said, ‘You know well enough.’’
‘What did she know?’ cried the prince.
‘How was I to tell?’ replied Rogojin, with an angry laugh.
‘I did my best to catch her tripping in Moscow, but did not
succeed. However, I caught hold of her one day, and said:
‘You are engaged to be married into a respectable family,
and do you know what sort of a woman you are? THAT’S
the sort of woman you are,’ I said.’

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